About a month and a half into studying abroad in Valencia, we caught word that the students at the Florence center got sent home. Right when I had gotten my feet set again in a new place, suddenly it became unclear how long I was going to be allowed to stay. By the time the pandemic started breaking out in Spain, it just became a matter of time before my life did another one-eighty.
What I could never have prepared myself for was that I was returning to an America that was very different than the one I had left. It did not really feel like I was home. Upon my arrival, I could not even hug my parents after days of straight chaos and months of missing them. I was put directly into a room set up specifically as the “quarantine” room. For my first two weeks back, I spent every minute in that room except for occasional walks outside. I communicated with my parents and sister via facetime and yelling through the door once in a while. My parents brought me food, water and whatever else I needed.
Then the day came when I could finally be around my family again. That night, I caught a fever and sent a wave of hysteria and confusion throughout my household. I began round two of the quarantine room except for this time, I had a recurring 103-degree fever, chills, headaches and a sore throat to accompany me. I got tested for Corona for the first time a couple of days after the initial fever and the results took about a week to come in. For that whole week, I constantly worried that I had given my family, some of who are at high-risk, the novel virus that nobody still knew much about. Thankfully, the test results came back negative and I was informed that I had mono. It was odd to me that I was living in a world where mono was great news.
One major takeaway was how important people truly were to me. I was never a person who got super attached to a place or a specific bed or room. It has always been the people who make every place I move to feel like home.
When I got home after not seeing a familiar face in months, the only thing I wanted to do was be with the people I loved. In Spain, I had also been dating a guy who I was used to seeing every single day. The switch to constantly being around people to complete isolation was almost maddening. Sitting in the quarantine room watching all my friends and family hang out without me broke my heart a little not only because of my FOMO, but because I missed them all so much. The bright side was when I finally did get to see them all again, it was almost euphoric. It made me realize how grateful I am to be surrounded by people who mean that much to me.
Going through quarantine and mono alone also taught me a lot about how I handle my mental health when I can feel it deteriorating. In my first two weeks, I was almost excited about all the free time and an excuse to not go anywhere. I could focus on my schoolwork, watch movies, read and write all day.
Overall, the biggest thing I learned was to appreciate everything in my life. When I was slowly allowed to do the little things again, like running to CVS or hanging out in the living room with my parents, it all seemed a little more meaningful. Even though life was still crazy, and the future was still unknown, I could not help but love it and I still do.
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